Estée Lauder was the co-founder, with her husband Joseph Lauder, of Estée Lauder Companies, a pioneering cosmetics company. She was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens, New York, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. She was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She married Joseph Lauter in 1930. They had two sons. Estée divorced Joseph in 1939, and re-married him in 1942. The couple remained married thereafter until his death in 1982. The Lauter family changed their surname to "Lauder" in the late 1930s. Her older son, Leonard Lauder, was chief executive of Estée Lauder and is now chairman of the board. Her younger son, Ronald Lauder, is a prominent philanthropist, a Republican political appointee in the Reagan administration, and developer of property in Berlin, among other endeavors.

Lauder died in her Manhattan residence of cardiopulmonary failure at the age of 95.
 and Charles, Prince of Wales. She recently designed costumes for the Renaissance tour of the Opera Babes.

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